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Cities around the world that are reducing car access

I thought this would be an interesting thread to track the efforts of various cities to reduce the amount of car access, and thereby improve either the public realm, transport infrastructure, or just the local environment.

Today Paris won a court case which will allow them to proceed with banning cars from the banks of the Seine:

https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1055442830892654594

https://phys.org/news/2016-09-paris-cars-river-seine.html

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cgcsb wrote: »

This is a failure in every city in the world except maybe Pyongyang .

No bus lanes around my way except for one which runs in the middle of the road and changes direction of travel based on rush hour traffic flows or other tram lines which are shared with buses but not cars.

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

How did old people get around before cars? None of my Grandparents had cars and now people go on like old people should be be able to park and drive to anywhere they want.
How old are we talking? My parents still walk and cycle and drive and they're 71 and 67.
I don't think we should be allowing cars access to everywhere in case a pensioner wants to drive there, feck them.

I must tell my senior citizen Neighbour who is being fitted with a pacemaker today to get on his bike or walk in to town. Stop thinking of things purely from your perspective.

Thelonious Monk

Deleted User wrote: »

I must tell my senior citizen Neighbour who is being fitted with a pacemaker today to get on his bike or walk in to town. Stop thinking of things purely from your perspective.

I don't expect the city to be designed around me when I'm bloody 80 or 90.
The vast vast majority of people can walk or cycle, we should be planning around these people. I'm sick of people going on about the old and disabled when they couldn't give a flying f*ck about them they just don't want to give up an inch of roadspace used by cars.

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I don't expect the city to be designed around me when I'm bloody 80 or 90.
The vast vast majority of people can walk or cycle, we should be planning around these people. I'm sick of people going on about the old and disabled when they couldn't give a flying f*ck about them they just don't want to give up an inch of roadspace used by cars.

You've had an empathy bypass apparently.
How about a city famous for its Hospitals. Do you expect those people to be jumping on a bus after treatment, making multiple changes and negotiating the web of public transport solutions to get home.

Deleted User wrote: »

I must tell my senior citizen Neighbour who is being fitted with a pacemaker today to get on his bike or walk in to town. Stop thinking of things purely from your perspective.

Outrageous to think of older people walking and cycling isn't it?

https://twitter.com/SilkeRichard/status/1271844709519024128?s=19

The irony of course is that if he had been a regular cyclist, the chances of getting coronary heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes would be much reduced.

Deleted User wrote: »

I must tell my senior citizen Neighbour who is being fitted with a pacemaker today to get on his bike or walk in to town. Stop thinking of things purely from your perspective.

Its significantly harder for older and disabled people to navigate a city when it is full of cars.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

The irony of course is that if he had been a regular cyclist, the chances of getting coronary heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes would be much reduced.

How little you know. Just last week I had to warn his wife that I encountered him on the hill leading from his house and if he didn't slow down he'd kill himself when he falls off his bike at speed. If he had fallen off there where I met him he'd probably have come to a half somewhere close to the memorial for another cyclist who split his head open after coming off his bike racing down that slope.
Bikes are great until they're not so great.

AlmightyCushion

Deleted User wrote: »

I must tell my senior citizen Neighbour who is being fitted with a pacemaker today to get on his bike or walk in to town. Stop thinking of things purely from your perspective.

You can walk and cycle with a pacemaker.

Deleted User wrote: »

No bus lanes around my way except for one which runs in the middle of the road and changes direction of travel based on rush hour traffic flows or other tram lines which are shared with buses but not cars.

Right, so not what you said at all, in fact you have a high quality, near BRT standard system with centre road running.

Podge_irl wrote: »

Its significantly harder for older and disabled people to navigate a city when it is full of cars.

I don't know about that but where I am the cars stay off the pavements and pedestrianized streets.

cgcsb wrote: »

Right, so not what you said at all.

The bus lanes and tram lines are not there at the expense of other road users which is the recurring theme throughout this thread; ban those nasty cars.

Deleted User wrote: »

How little you know. Just last week I had to warn his wife that I encountered him on the hill leading from his house and if he didn't slow down he'd kill himself when he falls off his bike at speed. If he had fallen off there where I met him he'd probably have come to a half somewhere close to the memorial for another cyclist who split his head open after coming off his bike racing down that slope.
Bikes are great until they're not so great.

Would you like me to produce details of all the many studies showing the health benefits of cycling?

And as for injuries, wait till you hear about cars. Vastly more people are killed and injured in cars than on bikes.

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You can walk and cycle with a pacemaker.

On Saturday he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know about that but where I am the cars stay off the pavements and pedestrianized streets.

I take it you're not in Dublin then?

https://twitter.com/dublinblockers/media

or in Dublin 14?

https://twitter.com/Dub14Blockers/media

Deleted User wrote: »

The bus lanes and tram lines are not there at the expense of other road users which is the recurring theme throughout this thread; ban those nasty cars.

Did the bus lanes and tram lanes come out of thin air?

Deleted User wrote: »

On Saturday he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

But he could cycle fast enough for you to be worried about his speed?

Deleted User wrote: »

The bus lanes and tram lines are not there at the expense of other road users which is the recurring theme throughout this thread; ban those nasty cars.

But in Dublin's case that space generally isn't available so our only option is to re-allocate space from cars(the least efficient road user) to public transport (a much more efficient road user) and pedestrians and cyclists, who are even mroe efficient again.

Where is this city you are talking about anyway?

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Would you like me to produce details of all the many studies showing the health benefits of cycling?

And as for injuries, wait till you hear about cars. Vastly more people are killed and injured in cars than on bikes.

Vastly more, pro-rated?? How current are your statistics. It is very hard to kill yourself in a modern car.

Please show me the sections in those studies where they dealt with injuries from falling off bikes. e-bikes have filled the emergency rooms in recent years with old people who can't stay upright on them. This neighbour also messed up his wrist last year.

cgcsb wrote: »

But in Dublin's case that space generally isn't available so our only option is to re-allocate space from cars(the least efficient road user) to public transport (a much more efficient road user) and pedestrians and cyclists, who are even mroe efficient again.

Where is this city you are talking about anyway?

My city in southern Germany is considerably older and more tightly packed than Dublin but very progressive with regard to implementation of solutions to transportation than Dublin.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

But he could cycle fast enough for you to be worried about his speed?

keep up to date. Last week is more than just saturday and with a 20% gradient gaining speed is not the problem.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Did the bus lanes and tram lanes come out of thin air?

They didn't come out of the activism of vested interest groups with a pathological hatred of private transport.

Thelonious Monk

Deleted User wrote: »

My city in southern Germany is considerably older and more tightly packed than Dublin but very progressive with regard to implementation of solutions to transportation than Dublin.

You're in Germany, different kettle of fish. Every footpath in Dublin is covered in illegally parked cars that often push the old and disabled out onto the road among traffic, it is endemic.

Deleted User wrote: »

My city in southern Germany is considerably older and more tightly packed than Dublin but very progressive with regard to implementation of solutions to transportation than Dublin.

Yeah I seen this in Nurnberg, they've the car parks on the edge of a completely pedestrianised core and there's some car parks around the inner ring road, which we don't really have an equivalent of here and never will.

West Germany had the Marshal plan in the mid 20th century. The USA paid them to build big roads around the cities. This never happened in Ireland although we did have a good stab at doing same to a few of our city centre streets, destroying much of them in the process. Thankfully this Americanisation policy was abandoned by the 1990s.

I'm glad you retracted your statement about buses and bikes simply sharing space with cars, which is not the case in Nurnberg, Munich or Stuttgart. All of which have networks of bus and cycle lanes.

In Dublin's case improving transport means a re-allocation of road space from car to sustainable mode and this is continuing apace as we've seen recently on the South quays. The removal of multi lane roads is the future.

Cars are allowed park partially on footpaths overnight but it is policied as with every other element of German life.

cgcsb wrote: »

I'm glad you retracted your statement about buses and bikes simply sharing space with cars, which is not the case in Nurnberg, Munich or Stuttgart. All of which have networks of bus and cycle lanes.

I retracted nothing. Bus and Cycle lanes are few and far between. Cyclists generally share broad pavements with pedestrians. They've closed a lane to make a temporary 4km bike lane out to a suburb here but that is a temporary measure to see if they can induce some bike traffic but if it does work they'll put in something more permanent which isn't at the expense of motorists. Frankly I don't see it being a success as on that route any cyclist would put their bike on the commuter train and travel in at 100kmph then cycle from one of the city stations.
If cyclists want to venture on to the roads they can and if motorists don't give them the 2 metres distance they are allowed the motorist picks up a fine. If the cyclist doesn't obey the rules of the road they'll be picking up fines too.
You apply the laws that are there before you ban a vital element of the transport system which is the privately owned vehicle.

Deleted User wrote: »

I retracted nothing. Bus and Cycle lanes are few and far between. Cyclists generally share broad pavements with pedestrians. They've closed a lane to make a temporary 4km bike lane out to a suburb here but that is a temporary measure to see if they can induce some bike traffic but if it does work they'll put in something more permanent which isn't at the expense of motorists. Frankly I don't see it being a success as on that route any cyclist would put their bike on the commuter train and travel in at 100kmph then cycle from one of the city stations.
If cyclists want to venture on to the roads they can and if motorists don't give them the 2 metres distance they are allowed the motorist picks up a fine. If the cyclist doesn't obey the rules of the road they'll be picking up fines too.
You apply the laws that are there before you ban a vital element of the transport system which is the privately owned vehicle.

There are a significant network of cycle lanes in Munich, Nurnburg and Stuttgart and those cities are now following a policy, similar to Dublin in replacing space for cars with sustainable modes. Sorry if you don't like that, but that's what way those cities are going.

Deleted User wrote: »

I retracted nothing. Bus and Cycle lanes are few and far between. Cyclists generally share broad pavements with pedestrians. They've closed a lane to make a temporary 4km bike lane out to a suburb here but that is a temporary measure to see if they can induce some bike traffic but if it does work they'll put in something more permanent which isn't at the expense of motorists. Frankly I don't see it being a success as on that route any cyclist would put their bike on the commuter train and travel in at 100kmph then cycle from one of the city stations.
If cyclists want to venture on to the roads they can and if motorists don't give them the 2 metres distance they are allowed the motorist picks up a fine. If the cyclist doesn't obey the rules of the road they'll be picking up fines too.
You apply the laws that are there before you ban a vital element of the transport system which is the privately owned vehicle.

You seem to have a total disconnect between the things you are saying are good for the city, eg you don't seem to have an issue with this cycle lane becoming permanent, while also thinking that it being added wouldn't be 'at the expense of motorists' that may be the way things are considered in Germany, but in Ireland taking a lane from private cars to give to cyclists would be seen as exactly that.

You also get to enjoy the German police force actually applying the laws around traffic. The reason we are looking for alternative 'hard' solutions is because the Gardai are at best ineffective and at worst actively harmful in applying traffic laws, so much so that the National Transport Authority has spent at least 10 years begging to be given permission to introduce traffic cameras, as the only authorised body has absolutely abdicated its responsibility in that regard. The fact is that's not going to change any time soon, so you cant apply the same criteria you would in an efficiently policed German city.

cgcsb wrote: »

There are a significant network of cycle lanes in Munich, Nurnburg and Stuttgart and those cities are now following a policy, similar to Dublin in replacing space for cars with sustainable modes. Sorry if you don't like that, but that's what way those cities are going.

easy to say that from a distance. Germans are not as passive as Irish and would hang a Bürgermeister who made their daily lives intolerable.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

You seem to have a total disconnect between the things you are saying are good for the city, eg you don't seem to have an issue with this cycle lane becoming permanent, while also thinking that it being added wouldn't be 'at the expense of motorists' that may be the way things are considered in Germany, but in Ireland taking a lane from private cars to give to cyclists would be seen as exactly that.

concrete movable barriers, temporary traffic lights and yellow tape markings are not permanent fixtures so I don't see that bike lane being permanent in its current form. having cycled that route before the barriers were introduced that the pavement while adequate for walking along was not satisfactory for cyclists although cyclists were expected to share it with pedestrians.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Capacity isn't reached because in addition to easing access with private transportation other transport solutions are avaiable while not being at the expense of access such as a well run public bike schemes, privately owned bikes, blanket saturation of e-scooters, public buses sharing the same road space as cars, trams sharing some of the road space with cars and an integrated transport system which means that many people in edge case scenarios don't need to consider acquiring a car...all done without banning cars in the city and much higher population densities than seen in most of D1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,etc..

I'm not sure you understand the word "capacity"